We toured across the beautiful Zavalska Mountain in the hot summer of 2013. Yes, the Zavalska one! It turned out that the furthest western line of Western Bulgaria is full of small mountains that were simply never mentioned in school – Viskyar, Lyubash, Chepun, Ruy, etc. A winding road abandoned a long time ago took us to the St. Archangel Michael Bilinski Monastery, 16 km away from the town of Pernik. It was built back in the 13 – 14 century. Due to its murals it has been proclaimed a monument of culture of national significance. However, those have been ruined and so is the church, now surviving under thick bushes and only part of the ground floor and the fence are visible.

Unfortunately, this is only one of many abandoned sites across this country. That is why three years ago a young man, Plamen Stefanov, came up with the idea of a Facebook profile named Abandoned in Bulgaria. He admins it for free, together with his girlfriend, turning his passion for travels and photography into a noble cause. He publishes both his own stories and pictures, along with the ones sent to him by others. Over 13,000 people have already liked the page. “I spare 15 minutes of my time daily to show to the people something interesting from the history of Bulgaria which they don’t know,” Plamen says. 

“Any sight of ruins can be devastating – from the Naval Academy with thousands of cadets gone through it, to a small kindergarten hidden in the forest", Plamen explains. "It is obvious that someone has absorbed some money, has renovated and then forgotten those spots. People get most impressed by former military sites, once enormously funded and kept in secret and now completely abandoned, though tax payers still provide for them. The bad news is that civilians are not allowed to take care of such places. And each airfield’s several dozen hectares might be used for civil purposes – for instance, a speed track or a polygon for wannabe drivers. In fact, many of those sites are quite attractive and one day when someone buys them for a ridiculous amount of money those are no longer accessible for the people whose taxes have built them.”

We often admire the tidy small streets with their old well-preserved buildings which can be seen in Western Europe, failing at the same time to spot those places of beauty here right in front of us, as we leave them to ruin. “It is much easier to sit and wait for someone to fix it, instead of doing it on our own,” Plamen answers, but adds:

“The work on my Facebook webpage has got me acquainted with many young people in Bulgaria that can serve as an example. For instance, this boy Kristian who launched a Facebook initiative for the preservation of the narrow gauge in the Rhodope Mountain. He organized his coevals to renovate with their own paint and brushes the train stations. They cannot bring them back to life, as it is the state’s job, but they are trying to bring back a certain outlook at least. Thus they won’t have to explain to any foreign tourists that there hasn’t been a recent war here and this sad image is a result of a civil war - the lack of any actions. These are old and beautiful buildings but unfortunately we tend to focus these days on quite superficial ones that have nothing to do with the quality of the works of art of 50 to 100 years of age. No one cares to maintain the latter, as no money can be absorbed there – it is a matter of wrong policy.”

Plamen hopes that his page will make people open their eyes to what our predecessors have built up for us and also for our attitude towards that heritage. “The goal is to attract people to see these places and to inspire them to start thinking about how they can change things,” says the boy, standing behind the “Abandoned in Bulgaria” project.